A China Eastern Airlines plane skidded off the runway at a Shanxi airport yesterday, just two days after another of the carrier’s planes mistook a side road for the runway in Nanning.

No one was hurt in either of the incidents. At 9.53am yesterday, China Eastern Airlines flight MU2487 veered off course for some 300 metres, according to eyewitnesses. It was flying in from the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport to Shanxi’s capital Taiyuan city via Changzhi.

A spokesperson at the airport confirmed the incident with the South China Morning Post.

Witnesses said the airport had been closed temporarily.

On Tuesday, an Airbus 320 flying from Nanchang to Nanning, with flight number MU2005, somehow missed its target and landed on a taxiway parallel to the actual runway.

The airplane in the Changzhi runway mishap is a regional EMB -145 built by the Brazilian aerospace company Embraer.

In 2002, Embraer and Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation signed a joint venture to produce 50 regional jets, according to a Weibo post by state broadcaster CCTV.

Last Friday, Boeing announced that China Eastern agreed to order 80 Boeing 737s.

Professor Sun Ruishan, director of the Research Institute of Civil Aviation Safety in Tianjin, said that these two accidents were “certainly” threats to passengers’ safety, and should be avoided.

But he said the openly available information about these accidents is too limited to conclude whether the airline or other parties, such as the airport, should take the blame.

“Though technically speaking they are not very serious, a thorough investigation must be made,” he said. China Eastern could be reached for comment.